Is PM Modi rewriting Indian Politics after Landslide Victory in UP?

BJP Stormed in power in Uttar Pradesh after 14 years and repeated its remarkable victory after the 2014 parliamentary elections, where it won 42.7% votes and 73 (over 90%) of 80 Lok Sabha seats! However, Modi’s win in UP has a long term connotation to the history of Indian politics. We attempted to decipher it!

India’s first Prime Minister Pandit jawaharlal Nehru’s politics, which is more popularly known as Nehruvian politics gave shape to Indian version of democracy. The current Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s revival in the national politics especially after the landslide victory in the country’s largest and most populated state – Uttar Pradesh will reshape Indian democracy. This gives BJP a chance to take India into a new world equation, the question will keep haunting the largest party of India – can it take all along?

There are 403 Legislative Assembly seats in the Uttar Pradesh. The major parties are Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP), Indian National Congress and Bhartiye Janta Party (BJP). There were over 4500 candidates participated. In the Legislative Assembly 2017, BJP fought for all seats i.e. 403 and where there was no Muslim candidate but won 312 seats. This made BJP stormed to power after 14 years. BJP has created history once again as it did in parliamentary elections in 2014. It reminds the people that Modi wave is still alive in politics even though there is no positive sign after 2014 elections. This also means that the journey and mission that was initiated by former BJP supremos such as LK Advani and Kalyan Singh about two-and-half decades ago, has finally been accomplished by their successors led by people’s leader Shri Narendra Modi.

As BJP won the maximum seats in UP, time is ripe to decipher what were the factors that played crucial role to favour BJP?

Modi Wave and Repositioning image of BJP: The calculations, analytics and strategies were perfectly done by the BJP cadre led by BJP president Shri Amit Shah. They were very sure about reverse polarisation – uniting hindus under in favour of BJP. BJP had not allocated even a single ticket to any Muslim candidate even in Muslim dominated areas.

Modi is still is the most powerful face in Indian politics and has played the most important role. And he was able to further polarise Hindus by giving bold speeches such as Hindu-Muslims, Graveyard, crematorium and light on the occasion of Hindu- Muslims festivals such as Eid Vs Diwali at the last phase of campaigning. This makes huge difference in states where large part of people is illiterate and unaware of real developmental issues. In state mostly people belong to lower class family and they are not much literate and anyone can easily convince them after giving the luring speech or promise.

Backward classes are fast slipping away from Mayawati’s grip: The BSP supremo is losing her grip over the Dalit voters. She was not able to connect with her Dalit vote bank. She, instead, tried to please Muslims. She had allocated maximum tickets to Muslim candidate in Muslim dominated areas even though maximum BJP candidate won the election against them. Once result has been declared she wrote a letter to election commission blaming that EVM machine was set up wrong and was favouring BJP only.

Akhilesh Yadav’s bad image: The outgoing Chief Minister did well in his period but there were couple of cases where SP government failed to control the situation such as Mugaffar Nagar riots, Dadri – Akhlaks alleged murder and DSP Ziaul Haque’s murder etc.

Arrogance of SP-Cong Alliance: Akhilesh and Rahul Gandhi were little over confident and arrogant over their alliance. They took the campaign as an adventure than as real challenge. In politics, you can’t take your rival casually, especially when you have someone like Narendra Modi.

Triangle Politics: Victory is always secured by the party that plays divisive politics of majority. SP and BSP tried to please Muslim voters which makes just 19% of the total population whereas BJP tries to polarise the community which has about 80% population or vote sharing.

This gives strong reasons for SP, BSP and Congress to do some homework and soul-searching if they want to survive in politics. On the other hand, victory is the beginning for BJP to start now implementing the countless promises made by their leaders in each constituency! While revival of SP, BSP and Congress is not going to be easy, BJP is going to have tough time ahead to fulfill many of its promises! But that’s politics!

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